Board of Directors Meeting, March 4, 1954 5
Dr. E.M. Hayden, President of the Arizona Medical Association, said that he had received two telephone calls today from Phoenix, one from Bob Carpenter and one from Dr. D.W. Melick, and another at around 5: P.M. from Dr. Salsbury, Director of the Arizona State Department of Health.
Dr. Melick told him that there was quite a furore raised in Phoenix about the polio vaccine because of an article which appeared in the New England Medical magazine which was critical of it. This article Dr. Melick had cut out and placed of Dr. Salsbury's desk with a note to review it and see what he thought about it. Someone, an assistant in the office, turned over to the newspapers and said that the Arizona Medical Association is against the polio vaccine, which put Dr. Melick in a spot, and Dr. Salsbury would like to have us know the details and to get the approval of our County Society for this program which they are going to introduce. It is Dr. Melick's thought that that Polio Foundation is jumping the gun and have announced it too soon, as they are $50,000.00 in the red, and probably hope this will help in raising funds. He is, personally, not opposed to the program.
Dr. Salsbury said that he had contacted Pinal, Yuma, and other counties, to get their approval. Their program is that they will give this Salk vaccine to all the second graders, will have no control of groups, but the first and third graders will not get the vaccine and will be rated as a control group. He did not think it was right to give a placebo and have the parents think their children were protected. He has talked with Salk personally, and talked with Dublin of the Foundation, and, as far as can be gathered, there has been no untoward reaction. The material they will use here won't be used if it is not safe in Allegheny County, Penna., where it will be used first. They will have a meeting on March 12 in Phoenix, if anyone would like to attend. Dr. Salsbury wishes to know if we have any objection to having it run by the Health Department. They have offered their assistance and thought there would be no objection.
Dr. Bernstein opened Discussion, and said,
Dr. Bernstein--I think it is necessary that we mention the fact that Dr. Steen brought this up before the members months ago, asking whether we would approve having Pima County act as a trial center, and that we wrote Dr. Salsbury indicating that we accepted this program.
Dr. Steen--On December 16, 1953, we wrote to Dr. Salsbury that the Pima County Medical Society, in the event that it were chosen for the test program with the new vaccine, would cooperated with the Department of Public Health to the very best of its ability. Since then I have talked with Carl [Karl] Meyer of the Hooper Foundation in California, and he was rather critical of the whole thing. Now Salk goes in before Basil O'Connor and says everything is fine. Then Meyer said he talked with Salk asking the dilution of formaldehyde, 1:40000 or 1:8000, and said "Well we decided it was not safe." Meyer was very critical and said that some of the larger states are going to run trials. They had the attorney general of California at one of their meetings, who warned the doctors that if they have anything to do with it they would be liable if any of the children died of it. They are going to run antibody tests on all the children before they give it to them. My impression was that possibly they had jumped the gun, but that it can be worked out all right, eventually. Meyer was sincere and honest about it, and left orders that his grandchildren were not to get any of the vaccine, and I am passing this on for what it is worth.
Dr. Thompson--Has there been no local objection?
Dr. Hayden--Not in town, but there have been some report objections in Phoenix.
Dr. Rudolph--I understand that it will be used in other States besides Arizona, in the southern part of the United States, in Michigan, Illinois and in California. Salsbury investigated it and could not find any objection to it. He is going to do it because he finds no objection to it.
Dr. Hayden--What they want is to know if we have any objection to the Health Department going out and doing it. The only thing is that the press is going to
